Layput

Saying that this film could potentially be the best Filipino film ever made is a big statement, perhaps an overstatement, but I think it is. However, there are some things I would like to get off my chest and say that some things in the movie could have been better.

It has been a while since I've seen a Filipino act so good. With this, I wish to extend Jake Macapagal my deepest congratulations. His acting was precise and right on the money and I do not think that there was anyone who could have played the role better.

I don't exactly know what was wrong with the dialogs but perhaps because the original script was written in English and was later on translated to Filipino, that it became apparent that it brought about cultural-linguistic misalignments which made many lines sound fundamentally imprecise. To those who cannot understand spoken Filipino and would only need to rely on subtitles to understand the dialogs, the acting can appear fine. But for those who understand the native language, some actings can appear painfully bad.

Althea Vega was frigid most of the time but there was nothing that she could do worse than when she delivered iconoclastic lines. John Arcilla is a great actor by any measure but how his acting turned out to be unusually tense is a big wonder. He could have simmered his excitement quite a bit and he would have played the role with much more convincing realism.

Of all the actors in the film, only two managed to give life to their lines without unnecessarily giving an underacting or an overacting. Only Jake Macapagal and Miles Canapi, the madamme who played Charlie, were the only two worthy of praise. But everyone deserves to be congratulated, nonetheless. However, I find it quite strange because all the scripts, I believe, were written or translated by the same person. And yet some of the actors gave outstanding performances and some of them gave poor ones. I guess it is safe to say that talent can get the best out of the actors even if the lines are fundamentally flawed.

Many people have noticed that the film painted the capital in a rather unsightly way. I understand that in order to get a good story across, the plot has to tread somewhere in the territories of exaggeration. But believe me, the depiction of Metro Manila as a dirty city with ruthless inhabitants who always acted on their animalistic selfish behavior is chillingly accurate. What is more surprising is that it was written by a foreigner who has not lived in the Philippines for very long and who many consider could not give an accurate account of the locality. But his impressions or observations were excruciatingly accurate which no one can attempt to dispute.

Watching the entire film was exhausting not because it was dull or boring but because the misfortunes of the family always make you wish they could finally catch a break at some point. And when you think that nothing could be worse, along comes another. Imagine yourself in the shoes of those persons in real life and it would give you a whole new sense to the meaning of the word 'living'. I wonder what people in the First World countries feel about their First World problems after watching this.

This movie is so tense, I had to watch it in staggered sessions because I could not handle the suspense. The anticipation was so unbearable that I always jumped off my seat several times.

I grew up in Manila and I have seen it transformed. I have been to all those locations that were shown in the movie but nothing could have prepared me for what I would see in this film. If ever there was a family in Manila that goes through what this family had been through, I wouldn't want to know about it. Honestly, it now gives me second thoughts about getting out of the house when I would be visiting there in the future. Not because I am scared of the place but because I wouldn't want to meet anyone that could remind me of the sad fate of the family in this movie. In a way, I admit that I am affected and I must say that if a film can create such an impact to the viewers, I believe the story teller has achieved his purpose.

While I may not give this film 10 stars due to some dialog flaws, I believe it is the best Filipino film ever made. Only that it really was not made by a Filipino per se but by a British film maker who was trying to make a non-English foreign film. Regardless, I am still glad that someone has done something which many Filipinos can relate to. Yes, it is unfortunate that it would take a foreigner to make the best Filipino film but just like the overall tone of the film, it is sad but true.

A. Make-up/Prosthetics

Bad.

Imagine a time span of about 15 years and imagine a character that does not age. Also, imagine that for that period, her hair does not change a bit and her real hair is peeking out under her ridiculous wig.

Now, watch Rosario. Those are exactly what you will see.

Not only are the wigs and the drinking of the elixir of eternal youth ridiculous, the make-up are also downright laughable. I am not an expert in make-up but I think that they could have done better if they tried to match the color of the make-up to the skin tone of the characters. Yul Servo's white make-up does not go well with his dark skin tone as his performance does not go well with good acting.

B. Direction and Cinematography

Bad.

If this is Mr. Martinez's first directorial job, I really think that it should also be his last.

First off, his choice of perspective is to capture the emotions of the characters, which resulted in a caption that was so tightly boxed, you will actually have a difficult time imagining what expressions the other parts of their bodies are doing. It was really quite frustrating to look for emotions and good acting that were not there even if the actors' faces are all over the screen. With the top of their heads chopped off for most of the time, it seems like this film has nothing to offer except eyes, nose, lips, bad facial expressions, if any at all, and some ridiculous corpse-like make-up.

Second, the dialog was awful. The script was so bad, none of the lines sounded the tiniest bit of being life-like. The lines were so poorly written that you could almost detest the taste of cheese for the rest of your life. I can forgive the ridiculous make-up, the inconvenience offered by the convenience of being ageless, the bad suits, or the chopped off heads. But the bad lines and dialogs are something that I can not forgive; for it is in the good lines and dialogs that good acting can be elicited from. And since dialogs in this film are horrible, you can not expect anything from acting. All you will ever see are expressions similar to when something is pulled out of someone's ass.

I know that it was not Mr. Martinez's fault that they could not find talented writers. But as someone trying to become someone like Clint Eastwood, he could have revised the dialogs and devised a way on how to improve the performance of his actors. The formula is really quite simple: act it out and check if it feels something life-like. If it doesn't, then change it. How come he has not learned anything from Mr. Eddie Garcia when he acted out in Abakada Ina?

Since the story was based on real-life situations, they could have opted out for dialogs that were more life-like rather than pulling dialogs out of comics magazines or radio drama shows.

C. Acting

Awful.

I understand the predicament of actors having to act out bad lines. One can only imagine how hard it must be to act out a bad dialog. If you watch closely, you could really feel for Jennylyn Mercado trying desperately to fit good acting with unbelievably awkward dialogs and situations.

Talking about bad direction, in Isabel Oli's breakout moment where she was forced to reveal where Rosario had gone to, it was actually quite confusing to me why she appeared before the father all welled up together with Rita Avila (who, by the way, does not resemble any amount of Chinese features and was made to sport a ridiculous Chinese accent. She could have been cast as one of the Spanish women as her features would suggest. The casting was so bad, one would actually think that they've been picked out by a blind person). This scene could have been made more realistic had the director made the maids come to the father and had them cry as the situation called when they were left with no choice.

One of the biggest disappointments in this movie is Yul Servo. Clearly, my respect for this guy is diminishing as he is cast in more roles he is not qualified for. At first, I guessed that they were looking for someone Moreno or more Pinoy-looking. But then again, their choice for Rita Avila would suggest otherwise.

I do not know which is more mismatched: Yul Servo's mouse-like voice to his Pinoy features, his ridiculous recitation of a poem in Spanish to his wooden non-performance, his ridiculously sized suit to his presence in the movie, or the ridiculous powder in his face to his well-gelled hair, which surprised everyone how Gatsby made it in the 20's.

I actually stormed out of the cinema the moment I saw the same faces and hair of Rosario and her mother, which are the same faces and hair I saw at the opening of the film, some 15 years ago based on the flow of the story.

I actually regretted having to shell out P180 for a digital movie with bad soundtrack and not having to finish it. But I was also relieved that I did not have to endure this movie until it ended because I was sure it would have been pure agony.

If the acting in this film looked like the expression when something is pulled out of someone's ass, watching this film is exactly the opposite of that: It is when something rough and thorny is rammed up your ass.